Here's the thing about Delta Airlines….
I loathe Delta Airlines.
The hate I possess is an unreasonable hate. They have seats that are more big butt friendly, I’ve never had customer service issues, and the flights I have taken with them have been smooth. But inevitably, for some awful reason, Delta always requires a layover in Hell on Earth, GA—known as the Atlanta Airport.
This layover was particularly rough. I have an irrational phobia of planes that has never improved in my 31 years and I was running on a mere 3 hours of sleep thanks to leftover hurricane winds and my other irrational phobia of strong storms. I was coming home from a week of business at my old job, and needless to say I was ready to be back in my own bed. I sat down on the tile floor outside the gate with my hastily thrown-together lunch, hoping for ten minutes to charge my iPad. That’s when the shakes started.
It was five minutes later when my friend and coworker, Becky, sat down beside me with her Chic fil a and a book. She looked over to see me staring hard at a breathing video on my phone.
“How ya doin?” She asked.
“I’m having a panic attack.” I replied.
“Oh, ok.” She continued, and just...returned to her book and chicken sandwich.
Believe me when I say that it was the best possible reaction available. I am both hyperbolically and legitimately thankful that Becky was my travel partner that day.
Panic and anxiety attacks are not new to me, and if you, reader, also have them then you understand how sad it is that eventually they are something a person just gets used to. With enough practice, one learns how to handle them in public places and the fact that I didn’t have to handle somebody else’s panic on top of my own was a Godsend. It also meant, unfortunately, that I was going to have a fast pulse, shaky hands, sweaty armpits, and labored breathing in the Atlanta airport, then on a crowded airplane, and then possibly in the car on the home. Becky was perfectly helpful by remaining calm and collected. But when it game down to the grit of the situation, the reality was this:
I was the only one who was going to be able to get me home.
I did, and my smiling husband with dogs in tow to pick me up was a welcome sight—as was my bed when I eventually collapsed into it and slept for four hours. I was lucky. Mental illness is a tricky business, and it seems like the business is growing amongst our population as the years pass.
There’s something I want to get off my chest, but I want to do it as gently as possible. It’s something I need along with anyone else, and I know how I react to words like these. I almost always hear the things that aren’t being said—it’s a giant struggle of mine. That’s why I want to make certain that what I DO say here is not lost in the things that I’m NOT saying.
Here’s what I’m NOT saying about mental illness:
That we’re just making excuses. We aren’t.
That we should just do better. A lot of times, we’re doing the best we can.
That we can’t express our feelings when someone hurts us. We spend a lot of time protecting other people, and often they don’t realize it.
That we can’t express when we are struggling. Our brains are a minefield, and trying to manage minimal functionality can be exhausting.
That we can’t ever ask for help. In fact, a lot of us avoid asking for help.
That our wins should look like everyone else’s. I can guarantee you they won’t.
That we have to accept the blame for everything, all the time. It’s physically impossible for everything to be our fault.
That if we really wanted help, we’d find a way to overcome the lack of access. Health coverage is a current American crisis for a reason.
Here’s what I am saying, the truth nugget that’s really hard to hear sometimes—it’s not someone else’s job to manage our emotions for us. We can’t spend our lives asking someone else to be the adult. It isn’t our spouse’s job to wrangle us when we’re having an episode. It isn’t our parents job to coddle us until the inner roar pacifies. It isn’t our friend’s job to just be patient and absorb it when we are agitated and say something mean or prickly as a result. It isn’t our roommate’s job to feed and water our pet for the third day in a row because it’s too overwhelming. It isn’t our boss’ job to just cover our workload when we are struggling to get through the day. It isn’t even our therapist’s job to navigate our brain for us—their job is to show us how to navigate our own brain, and be a support system while we learn to do so...even if it’s a lifelong process.
Becky was an awesome support, but it was not her job to get me home that day. It was mine.
I know. The first time I heard it, it really hurt. Life, in it’s due-process, has assigned us a lonely and impossible task. It’s unfair, and it’s ok to admit it’s unfair.* But it’s true, and the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can put in the real, brave work of getting and feeling better. Because getting and feeling better takes nothing less than real, brave work and we can’t be truly effective until we own our s***.
Now that that’s out of the way, can I communicate something I learned that is ridiculously freeing?
We have permission to figure it out.
I don’t mean you need MY permission to figure it out. And I don’t mean it must be figured out in all the negative senses of the word. We can figure it out! What a relief.
There’s no rule that we have to do it the normal way. If Life is going to do us the disservice of handing us an abnormal brain, then we get to find the abnormal ways of functioning, and we get to have fun doing it, dang it. We get to be creative.
Don’t feel productive until night time? Set an alarm at 8pm and set aside an hour to do stuff. Don’t like showering because self image is a struggle? Shower in the dark until you can manage to turn a light on or bring a candle in**. Having a really rough day for no reason? There is no law against googling pictures of kittens in hats. Don’t like cleaning the kitchen? Guess what, our mom isn’t here and we don’t have to clean it like she does—crank your beats, do it in underpants, load the dishwasher all wrong, leave crumbs in the corners, whatever we’ve got to do to have some semblance of getting it done. Figure it out, and figure it out our way. If someone has something to say about how we are figuring it out, send them to me and I’ll tell them where they can bite it.***
I am the most annoying person on the face of the planet to clean house with because motivation is stupid and I can generally only handle about 20 minutes to an hour of it at a time. But a day cleaning in twenty minute increments means that my house is at least 20+ minutes cleaner. Given my “hand to mouth” coping mechanism with anxiety, I don’t know if I’ll ever stop chewing my nails and possessing a constant compulsion to eat—but what I WILL have is a darn hydrated body and minty breath because I’ve figured out I can alleviate it by keeping ice water and gum handy. I’ve learned long ago to never trust my short term memory, so I live and die by list making apps and calendar alarms.**** I watch ASMR of people whispering at my face so I can fall asleep. I sleep way too much on the weekends, because if I sleep on the weekends that means I can face the work week ahead of me. If I can’t figure it out I read. If I can’t find it reading, I podcast it. If I can’t find the right podcast, I YouTube it. If YouTube is useless then I ask. If no one else knows, I add it to the list to talk with Dr B about.
What I’m saying is that dysfunction is hard, and sometimes I think we get so overwhelmed and trapped in it that we forget about the resources that ARE available. We are NOT alone. There are people who DO want to help. There IS free content available. We DON’T have to operate under the constraints of expectation when we are trying to figure out that whole moving forward thing. My hope for all of us is that we can embrace the mess that is learning how to function. Celebrate your wins, my love, no matter how “small” they may appear. We get to figure it out.
And please do celebrate your wins. You are amazing, and you deserve them.
Footnotes:
* Out loud, and with gusto.
**In fairness, I stole that idea from a meme.
*** My butt. The answer is my butt.
**** I literally have one set every Monday to tell me to water the plants. No. Shame.
Author’s Note:
Need some good places to start? Here are some resources I’ve either found or were recommended to me:
For basic financial tips and “grown up finance questions”: follow Two Cents by PBS on Facebook or go to their web page. They even answer things like “what is social security” and “is it really better to rent or own a house.”
Functioning in the adult world and questions on how to adult: Check out the book How To Skimm Your Life by the ladies from TheSkimm. They cover everything from basic budgeting, to organizing your closet, to finding the best wine. (Their fan base isn’t awesome, but the book is a good place to start.)
Along those same lines, I’ve been wanting to read 101 Questions You Need to Ask in Your Twenties by Paul Angone. If anyone has a good review on that one, send it my way!
Any and every lady question you’ve possibly had: listen to Stuff Mom Never Told You by How Stuff Works. They aren’t unbiased but they do talk about everything from why poop smells different at different times of the month, to vitamins and supplements, to gamer girls, to sexuality and sexy time questions.
Can’t sleep? Here’s my favorite ASMR channel on YouTube (judge me, internet. Judge me.), LatteAsmr. The Headspace app has a couple of good, free sleep casts. Additionally, here are some sleepy podcasts recommended by The Bustle.
Need to hear from people who just “get it”? Try the podcast, The Hilarious World of Depression.
Check out Facebook groups for local support—it’s not a perfect source, but a lot of urban communities have online support groups available and it’s nice to have if you just need to get something off your chest.
Struggling with grief, and tired of everyone saying exactly the wrong thing? Try the podcast Terrible, Thanks For Asking. It’s not great for feeling better but is great for honesty and some therapeutic practices.
It’s faith based and not for everyone, but Jen Hatmaker’s For The Love podcast helps me feel a little better about the world when I need it.
Celebrity Dogs exist, and often have their own Facebook pages, YouTube channels, and TikTok channels. My current favorites are Coconut Rice Bear and Tucker Budzyn.
I know we’re all rioting against TikTok (aka recycled Vine) at the moment, but it’s funny and I need friends so I’m plugging it.
Lastly, here is the breathing video I referenced earlier.
Have some suggestions of your own? Hit us up in the comments! We’re in this together, after all.
